Hilarie Burton says sexual harassment she endured early in career affects how she parents daughter

In 2017, she alleged she’d been the victim of sexual harassment while on the show One Tree Hill.

And in her new memoir The Rural Diaries, Hilarie Burton writes about that period of her life and the reasons she stayed silent for almost a decade after the show ended in 2009.

The actress, 37, told People in an interview published Thursday that her experience ‘affects how I parent’ two-year-old daughter George Virginia.

‘She will never be a pleaser. If my daughter tells someone to f— off, awesome. I wish I had had the ability to do that,’ she said.

Burton shares her daughter and a son Gus, 10, with her husband, The Walking Dead star Jeffrey Dean Morgan.

The couple live on a 100-acre farm in the Hudson Valley in New York State.

The actress had just turned 21 when she was cast in the coming-of-age drama series One Tree Hill in 2003.   

‘I had such strong relationships on the show and I still do,’ she told People. ‘There was so much good. But there was bad too.’

Burton claims she was ‘groomed’ on set by showrunner Mark Schwahn who she alleged touched her inappropriately and kissed her against her will.

She did not formally complain about the situation at the time.  

‘I was told that if you speak up, your career is over,’ she told People. ‘You’ll be labeled a troublemaker.’

She went on: ‘I didn’t say anything for a decade. And as a result of that, people were abused after me. The guilt that comes with that is really difficult.’

Schwahn, who has never commented on the allegations, was fired as showrunner of The Royals in 2017 following new allegations against him.  

Burton’s book The Rural Diaries is due to be released on May 5.